Kelly ups ante on top jobs for women

Westpac Banking Corp
chief executive
Gail Kelly
has set an ambitious target to have women in half of the bank’s leadership jobs within five years.

After delivering a record annual profit of $6.6 billion on Monday, Mrs Kelly said Westpac achieved an earlier target of 40 per cent of women in management positions two years ahead of schedule.

She said the next target was 50 per cent, possibly as soon as 2017.

“We haven’t done the arithmetic behind that [target] to actually assess the practicality of that, but certainly, from a philosophical point of view, that is the goal," Mrs Kelly said. “It is enormously gratifying to see the strength of women that we have in our organisation. And it means we are attracting and drawing in really high quality women."

Mrs Kelly, who has headed Westpac since 2008, doused speculation that her time at the bank was drawing to a close and declared she had no intention of moving on.

Speculation about how long Mrs Kelly intended to remain at Westpac has swirled since the bank recruited highly fancied banking executive Brian Hartzer to its senior ranks.

Mr Hartzer is a former ANZ Banking Group executive who joined Westpac in June after a stint in London as Royal Bank of Scotland’s retail bank boss. He is seen as a potential successor to Mrs Kelly when she decides to leave.

“I am really enjoying what I am doing and I am having fun doing what I am doing, and I have no plans to do anything other than carry on and drive the agenda forward," Mrs Kelly said.